


The Wedding Planners (read: Crashers)

by Unknown



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Arthur and Eames have a daughter, Because of Reasons, Domestic, F/F, F/M, Gender Neutral Pronouns, M/M, Multi, Pansexual Character, SO, also, and because people are sometimes, and she's getting married, breifly, brief mentions of, but their kid is pansexual, gender neutral characters, it took me forever to finish, ok i think that's it, sorry for this, that use gender neutral pronouns, there we go, this was for a friend on tumblr, um, why not represent?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 12:52:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unknown/pseuds/Unknown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur and Eames' daughter is getting married. It's planning the wedding that's the hard part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wedding Planners (read: Crashers)

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS FOR A FRIEND ON TUMBLR I HOPE THEY LIKE IT I AM SO SORRYYYYYYYYYY IT TOOK SO LONG
> 
> Anyway. Like I said in the tags, there are lesbian, gay, pansexual, genderqueer, straight, cis-gendered people in here. OKAY? okay. You know why? Because they are real and happen in real life and i just wanted to represent for a bit, yeah? Yeah ok. Awesome. 
> 
> Peace out bye.

It starts like this: Irene comes over with Sadie for some afternoon tea and Arthur spots his grandmother’s ring on Sadie’s left hand ring finger. Eames doesn’t seem to notice, kissing their daughter’s cheek and pulling her girlfriend (fiancé, Arthur’s mind supplies) into a crushing, playful embrace. And he’s still staring at the ring on her finger.

He’d given it to Irene when she was eighteen and told her, “This is the ring you give to the girl you love. This is also the ring you give to the boy you love. Or the gender-queer/androgynous person you love. Or the trans* person you love. Or the-”

“Dad I get it! Give it to the person I love!” she’d exclaimed and laughed. “I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon though.” And she had taken it and put it on a chain that she wore around her neck and never took off.

She’d come to him and Eames when she was twenty-three to freak out about whether she should give it to her boyfriend of two-years, William. They’d helped her get her thoughts straight and she had held onto it for a week before she decided she would ask. The Friday before her big debut, William had dumped her. Arthur remembers being glad she had waited.

Four years later and several disastrous relationships later, she had come crying to them when her partner Taylor had fought with her. Ze had wanted more from the relationship, and Irene had been too afraid and hurt from past relationships to give The Ring to zir. Irene had tried to patch up the relationship, but when she got to their shared apartment, zes things were packed and Taylor had left.

Their daughter is thirty-two now. Arthur isn’t even going to tell anyone his or Eames’ age anymore. They can guess. Anyway, what matters is this: for the first time since Irene’s been in a relationship with anyone, she’s given someone The Ring.

“Oh my fucking god, you’re _engaged_ ,” he blurts as Eames pulls away from Sadie. Eames freezes. Irene’s eyes go wide. And Sadie?

She _laughs_.

“I knew there was a reason I was excited to marry into this family,” she says, and then everyone is laughing along with her.

* * *

Sadie is a beautiful woman, inside and out, and Arthur understands how Irene fell for her. He remembers Irene telling them the story of how they met, how it was a hot day in Mombasa, where he and Eames had decided to settle down together, and how Irene had been visiting from her time in Italy when she slammed into Sadie at the market. There had been a heated argument on whose fault the collision was until Sadie had thrown her hands up in the air and swore loudly in colorful, flawless Russian.

Irene had been floored and backpedaled as fast as she could, asking Sadie out for drinks instead. Sadie, as she told it, was caught by surprise and that was the only reason why she agreed. Their relationship had flown from there.

Irene sits at the dining room table with her father, the same look of concentration on both her and Eames’ face. They’re looking at venues in several countries to host the celebration. Irene’s red hair is in a messy bun on the top of her head, and she’s in an old sweater with the name of the Parisian university that Ariadne used to attend, a present from the woman herself from when Irene was a teenager. Her dark brown eyes gaze at the catalogues with sharp intention, and she bites her lips, a habit picked up from Eames. Arthur lets his eyes flick to his husband who exclaims loudly about the venue he’s looking at in Tibet. Irene lifts her head slowly and gives him an incredulous look.

It’s not long before they start arguing good-naturedly.

Arthur, however, goes back into the kitchen. Sadie is by the stove, stirring whatever it is she’s been making in a pot. Arthur really wishes he could cook like his future daughter-in-law. She’s one of the best cooks he knows. He’d thought that was her profession the first time the girls had invited him and Eames to their flat in Ireland (when they’d lived there for a year) for dinner. He had learned upon that visit that she was three years older than Irene, had a PhD in engineering and was working for quite an important international company. It was the reason why she travelled so much, she had said. And Arthur knew Irene was willing to follow, being an up and coming novelist and so open to the idea of adventure.

Arthur smiles at the early days, and turns to Sadie, shaking his head. “They’re at it again.”

She throws her head back and laughs. “I’m not surprised,” she says. Her long, slender fingers wrap around the wooden spoon she’s using and she stirs some more. “Like father like daughter.” Her dark face is set in a permanent smile, her black,  short, curly hair pulled out of her face in a colorful scarf. He’d once asked her if she was originally from Mombasa, or if she was from somewhere else in one of the African city-states. She always seemed so full of heritage and history.

“I was adopted, believe it or not, by a wealthy Norwegian family,” she had told him, watching his mouth drop. Eames had given a chuckled before he realized she was being serious for once and then had congratulated her for the fact that every single one of the languages she spoke sounded completely like her native tongue. “So, I don’t know about where I am originally from. I don’t much care. The family I was a part of was wonderful to me and I love them very much.”

Arthur could respect that. He still did.

“Where do you think you’ll end up having it?” he asks in the here-and-now, sitting at the kitchen island, watching her scoop up a dish of whatever the stew is. It smells divine and he dives in when she places the bowl in front of him. It _tastes_ divine as well.

Sadie shrugs, sitting across from him. “I told Irene to take the reins. I gave her my preferences and I have absolute faith that she can balance them out with her own. We’ll be fine.” With that she digs into her bowl and makes a face. “Not enough salt,” she says absentmindedly.

“I think it tastes just fine,” Arthur offers and she reaches over to pat his face with a slim, soft hand.

“I think _you’re_ just fine,” she says. Then she leans back and crosses her arms, looking at him with a stink eye. “And I think you’re just kissing ass because we’re going to be family soon.”

Arthur shakes his head and tries not to smile. He fails. “Sadie, from the minute you made my daughter smile, you have _always_ been family.”

Despite the squeals of laughter coming from the dining room now as Irene and Eames tickle battle each other, the room seems quiet and peaceful with the look Sadie is giving him, so much gratitude in her deep, green eyes. He nods in satisfaction and goes back to his food.

“Though, now that you mention it,” he says after a moments silence, completely off topic, “maybe it is a bit too salty.” Sadie squeals with her own laughter and playfully hits him over the head with a dishtowel.

* * *

“What if she changes her mind?” Arthur looks up at Irene where she’s staring ahead at the scene in front of them. They’ve decided to take a family vacation in preparation for the wedding. Eames had suggested somewhere warm, Sadie had suggested somewhere new and together, the two had conspired to get them all to Mykonos, Greece. It scares Arthur a bit, how well Sadie and Eames get along. Sometimes, they’ll sit and speak in Welsh for hours while Arthur and Irene occupy themselves and honestly, he’s not sure that he wants to know what they’re talking about. It’s probably world domination is the thing.

Currently, Eames and Sadie are in the water, making complete fools of themselves. Eames is too old to go gallivanting in the water the way he is and if he pulls something, _Sadie_ is the one that’s going to be paying for the hospital visit, not Arthur.

“You’ve told her that your parents used to be big in dream-sharing, right?” Arthur says softly, watching his husband and future-daughter-in-law try and drown each other. Honestly, kindred spirits.

“Yeah,” Irene says. She’s huddled under a beach umbrella, pressed to his side, because yeah, she’s like Arthur when it comes to that. Burns like an egg on the hot sidewalk if she’s in the sun for more than five minutes. Between the two of them, they’ve almost used up the whole bottle of sunscreen. The umbrella is just extra protection.

“And?” he asks. Irene hadn’t really told them what had happened after that, just that it wasn’t a problem anymore.

“And she said that as long as we didn’t have to go on the run any time soon, then we were good. And if we ever did, she’d shoot you both and hide the bodies.” When Arthur looks over, Irene has a smug smile on her face.

“You two had sex after that didn’t you?” he says dryly, because he gets that same look after he wins an argument with Eames and gets lucky because of it.

“Dad! You can’t ask your only child about her sexual life with her soon-to-be spouse,” Irene says coyly, bumping shoulders with him. He loves the relationship he and Eames have with their daughter, really. They’ve always been so close, no secrets between any of them. Hell, she’d been the one to come up to them at the tender age of seventeen and tell them she lost her virginity to the kid she’d been seeing. Arthur had rolled his eyes and told her that she could’ve waited to tell them at dinner and Eames had merely shrugged and told her to be sure they were using the correct protection that applied to the genitals of whoever the kid happened to be. Honestly. Sex was natural and Arthur couldn’t understand why some parents shunned their kids from it or prohibited them from having it instead of making sure their kids were educated and responsible about it.

Whatever.

“But yes, we had sex after it and it was mind-blowing,” Irene supplies a moment later. Arthur groans and shoves her a bit. "Then I proposed."

"I was wondering about that," he says before getting her a bottle of water. “So you don’t get all dehydrated,” he says at her look. “Don’t want a hospital visit before your big day.” He pauses and looks over to the water where Sadie slams Eames into the water and swims away before he has a chance to come up and kick her ass.

“Though with those two roughhousing the way they are, we might have to anyway,” Irene says, voicing his exact thoughts. “I don’t think Poppa understands age limits.” She makes a face and laughs.

“Unfortunately,” Arthur says then winces. “Okay, I’m gonna go rescue the idiot I married and you’re gonna go distract the one you’re about to marry. Sound like a plan?” He turns to the side to see Irene putting on her sun hat and shawl.

“Oh yeah,” she says standing, ready to make the run in the sun and hopefully not get burned. Arthur follows suit, putting on a baseball cap and Eames’ t-shirt. They probably look like nuts, doing this, but hey. Protection first and such.

Before they run out, he turns to her and grabs her hand. “Irene?”

“Yeah, Dad?”

“You guys are gonna be just fine,” he says, going back to the heart of the matter. The smile she gives him could power a solar-power plant for a millennium.

“I figured as much,” she responds then bravely runs out into the sun. Arthur chuckles and follows her.

* * *

Arthur is completely exhausted from cake-tasting all day; the rub to that is that the girls hadn’t been able to pick a flavor. Or a venue. Or a DJ, or a theme, or invitations. Eames is sitting next to him at the little restaurant they stopped at, his head in his hands. He wordlessly hands the man a blister pack of paracetemol and Eames pops two out and swallows them down with a cup of tea.

“I don’t know, are we doing something wrong?” Eames asks finally. Arthur snorts.

“Weren’t you supposed to ask this when she was younger? Really? Right now, when she’s an adult?” Arthur says, but he knows what Eames is saying.

“We asked them if they wanted to plan alone, they assured us no. We asked if they were sure they wanted help, they said yes. But they won’t make a bloody solid decision!” he practically yells and they get dirty looks from a few other patrons.

“Ok, first of all, quiet down you. Second, I agree. And I’m also frustrated but…” Arthur trails off and looks up. It’s a high, upstanding place they’re at in central London. There’s music playing and couples slowly dancing in the center of the room on the small space cleared for the activity. He can pick out Irene and Sadie easily from here, Irene with her bright red hair and Sadie with her dark skin, their dresses bright, almost obnoxious colors. They’re swaying together to the soft music, waiting for their meals to arrive and Arthur can’t be angry at them. Not when they look so happy together. Not when they look so at ease, as if they don’t have a care in the world.

“Oh god, you’re doing it too,” Eames says with a resigned sigh.

“Doing what too?” Arthur asks, looking back to the man he gave up the dream-sharing life for, the man he shackled himself for life to.

“You’re looking at them and loving it, because they’re so… bloody perfect and now you’re not mad anymore,” Eames says softly.

“Ah,” Arthur says in understanding. “Let me guess: it hit you twenty seconds ago and you were just waiting for me to catch up?”

Eames laughs weakly and takes Arthur’s hand in his. “Oh, I do love you, Mr. Eames.”

Arthur lifts their hands to his mouth and presses a kiss to the knuckles of Eames’ hand, smiling against his skin as he catches sight of his daughter and her partner making their way back to the table as the food arrives. “And I you.”

* * *

They go to California, still at an impasse in wedding preparations, to visit the Cobbs. Yusuf and Ariadne show up too, so it’s a full house. Sadie declares the weather perfect for a cook out, and she’s bustling in the kitchen with Yusuf and Kaya, his and Ariadne’s only child and daughter, when Arthur comes in to grab a few beers. Phillipa comes down the stairs with her ten year old, Alice. Her sons, Jason and Greg, are outside in the pool with Irene. They’re completely attached to her.

“How’s it going in here?” Phillipa asks as Alice runs to give Arthur a hug.

“Yeah, I was about to ask?” Arthur says, lifting Alice into his arms, because he’ll never be too old to pick the kids up.

Sadie rolls her eyes and makes a face behind Yusuf’s back. “Oh just fine,” she says sarcastically. Kaya laughs at her father’s expense.

“If you had been more specific,” Yusuf starts, but Sadie cuts him off with a whack to his behind with a wooden spoon, and he yelps. Phillipa is in hysterical laughter and Yusuf is giving a smiling Sadie the stink eye. “I’m telling my wife,” he says.

“I think Ariadne might encourage her,” Arthur says truthfully.

“Mom will definitely encourage her,” Kaya says. “But never mind Mom, _I’m_ encouraging it!”

Arthur yelps, escaping the nutty kitchen with Phillipa and Alice before Sadie turned her wrath on them. They laugh good-naturedly and he lets Alice down to go play with Trisha, James’ six year old daughter. James’ wife sits with their one year old son by Phillipa’s husband, Kaya’s boyfriend, Dom and Eames. Ariadne is in the pool with Irene, Jason and Greg, playing Marco-Polo. Arthur swoops in and takes the baby, James’ wife Christine giving him a grateful look, and he passes out the beers.

He and Eames are godparents, along with Yusuf and Ariadne, to all the children. Irene and Kaya are as well.

“How are we, Dylan?” he says to the baby in his arms, who just gurgles and spits. He laughs and catches Eames’ eye as the man watches him. It’s nice, he muses, being with their family, spending a little time.

Sadie eventually makes her way out with Yusuf and Kaya, both bearing food, and they all settle at the picnic table on the patio Dom has out back. The others get out of the pool and join them, the children taking their plates to go sit in the grass with each other. Kaya and her boyfriend join the kids, keeping an eye out on them while getting some privacy for themselves. Irene grabs Dylan and settles in next to Sadie across the table from where he and Eames are sitting. As the others break into conversation, Arthur half pays attention to what James and Dom are talking to him about, using the other half of his focus to listen in on Ariadne, Christine, and Phillipa talking to Irene and Sadie.

“I think it’s wonderful you two are finally making it official,” Ariadne says as she eats. Christine nods beside her.

“Yeah, about that. When’s it going down?” she says and Phillipa laughs at her sister-in-law’s wording.

“We’re not sure yet,” Sadie says neutrally. “We’re still in the planning stages, aren’t we?” she says.

“Yup,” Irene responds, blowing raspberries into Dylan’s neck and making him laugh.

Off to his side, Arthur almost gets pulled into the conversation Yusuf and Eames are having, but he forces himself to focus in time to hear Ariadne laugh.

“Don’t even worry about it. I was pregnant with Kaya before me and Yusuf got our shit together enough to get a date,” she tells them, which is true. “Then it was a race to see what would happen first: the baby or the wedding.”

“Which one was it?” Sadie asks.

“It was a tie,” Ariadne admits. “I went into labor half-way through the ceremony and made the pastor finish marrying us before they rushed me off to the hospital.” Christine laughs and Phillipa details how it looked to her from her young, teenage point of view.

“Do you think you two will have any kids?” Christine asks. Arthur tenses up, feeling bad about listening in now. It’s none of his business, and if they wanted to tell him and Eames then they would. But he can’t seem to pull himself into whatever mundane debate James and Dom are having and he ends up listening to the response anyway.

“Maybe,” he hears Sadie say, something of longing in her voice. Arthur sneaks a glance over and the look on Sadie’s face is pure love as she watches Irene playing with Dylan, completely oblivious to the line of questioning by now. “I think so,” she says softer. “We were both adopted by such wonderful families, and she’s so good with children…” She looks to the older women and smiles. “I want that. It seems like she does. And she’d make such a wonderful mother.”

“Thank you,” Irene says smugly. “You would too, you know,” and Sadie gets two rouge spots on her cheeks in embarrassment that Irene had been listening in the entire time. Arthur chuckles to himself. Like dad, like daughter, he supposes.

“Anything interesting?” Eames asks from his side, his attention back on Arthur.

“Are grandchildren interesting, I wonder?” Arthur muses and Eames looks pleased and curious.

“I’d say so,” he says, shooting their daughter and Sadie a soft look. “I hope so,” he says lowly, more for Arthur’s ears and yeah. Arthur hopes so too.

* * *

They stay in their California home for a bit and by the end of the month, the girls are gone. Arthur wants to say he’s not surprised when he wakes up one morning to a single sticky note on the bathroom mirror signed by the both of them that says, _Getting hitched. Love you, Dad._ But he is surprised.

He makes his way downstairs for coffee and finds Eames sitting at the kitchen table innocently enough except for the way he’s biting his damned lips. It’s always been his tell, with Arthur at least.

“Oh come on,” he says, sitting at the table where Eames has left him a mug of coffee. “How long have you known they were leaving?”

“Only this week, love,” Eames admits easily, though a bit sheepish. “I confronted Sadie about the wedding plans when you were out shopping with Ariadne on Sunday. I thought she was having second-thoughts which is why she was stalling the plans. But alas, she called Irene down and they explained to me how they had decided that they didn’t think they could handle a big, fancy wedding and wanted something small.”

“Why didn’t they just tell us?” Arthur asks a bit surprised. What happened to no secrets?

“They were worried they would crush our spirits. I was fine with it, but they asked me not to tell you. Something about your heightened sensitivity and over-excitement for the wedding?” Eames says into his mug of tea, trying to hide his smile.  

Arthur wants to argue, but he is disappointed about it. He’d rather they had just told him straight out, but he grudgingly understands. He’d probably have tried to change their minds, and that’s not what they needed, wanted, or deserved.

“So where are they?” he asks. “Or can I not know?” He rolls his eyes.

“Don’t be silly, darling. I bought them plane tickets to Massachusetts.”

“Why _Massachusetts_?” Arthur asks incredulously. That’s on the other side of the country.

“Same-sex marriage has been legal there for years,” Eames says with a shrug. “And I heard Cape Cod is a beautiful place to get away to for a honeymoon.”

“Same-sex is legal _here_ , in California,” Arthur points out rather glumly. “And it’s near the ocean as well.” He’d wanted to be there, is what he’s really saying and Eames knows it.

“They needed some space alone,” Eames says. “They promised to send pictures and everything, and see us when we got back home. By the time we’re safely in Mombasa, they’ll be there visiting all hitched-up.”

Arthur slumps into his chair. “I can’t believe you helped our kids elope.” He doesn’t realize the slip until he sees Eames lips twitch up into a smile and then Arthur’s smiling too, because yeah, Sadie is one of their own and he knows that she’s going to snag the name of ‘Eames’ for her new surname because they’d talked about it. She’d been calling them ‘Dad’ and ‘Pops’ (Eames had been in a strop about that for a full week before he got over) almost since she’d first started dating Irene. It seems like so long ago now that Arthur thinks of it.

“Arthur, love. _We_ eloped,” Eames reminds him.

“Well we had Ariadne and Dom trying to plan our wedding. Let’s be real,” Arthur says, sitting up. “Anyone would want to elope with those two breathing down their necks about colors and flowers, with Yusuf complaining in the background.” He pauses. “Shit, we weren’t that bad, were we?”

“No, no,” Eames says. “It was their choice in the end, nothing to do with us. Though you have a point. We eloped for a reason.” Eames shrugs and reads the paper, and Arthur sighs, ignoring the sad little feeling in his chest at not being there. But he’s happy. His kid is happy, hell they both are. He smiles and gets up, starting breakfast for the both of them.

“Anything interesting?” he asks Eames, gesturing to the paper as he gets the frying pan and starts the eggs, gets some bacon and toast going too.

“Nah, not really,” Eames says. He absent-mindedly catches Arthur’s hand as he walks by. “I love you, by the way,” Eames says nonchalantly. “Just thought I’d get it out of the way in the morning.” There’s a stupid smile on his face, his lush lips stretching a bit. He’s scruffy, and he’s got wrinkles, and gray in his hair. He’s got laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, thought lines on his forehead and he drinks far too much tea, but Arthur knows he’s just as bad.

“I love you too,” he says, dropping a kiss onto the man’s cheek before he’ s let go and attends to their breakfast. He serves up the food a little while later and they eat in comfortable silence. The sun is out, they can hear the sound of the water outside their home coming in through the windows and it’s nice.

Arthur smiles because can and because in the end, he has a very good life. He looks up and Eames smiles right on back.

Yeah. They’ll be just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me if there are any mistakes PLEASE because this wasn't beta'd and I did the 'high-off-coffee' thing again.
> 
> SO I WOULDN'T NOTICE MUCH OK.
> 
> ok. 
> 
> peace out bye. again.


End file.
